Chapter 20 Dancing in the Moonlight
Dancing in the Moonlight
Coco
The good thing about this bachelorette party is that it’s not a regular bachelorette party.
First of all, because it’s a mixed group, which sometimes causes a few problems. Second of all, because we have a lot more time and that gives us time to fit in a lot of fun, long, leisurely meals, quiet naps, self-absorption, ranting at each other, hours of sleep, the landscapes we’ll drive through, the coffee and toast with olive oil and tomato for breakfast, time in the pool, posed photos, and a few candid photos.
But like everything in this world, something as wonderful as finally having time to relax with your nearest and dearest has a dark side too: Carrying the weight of your secrets and lies for a couple hours at a time is totally different from lugging it on your shoulders for the entire trip.
Many of us are starting to get tired arms.
Despite the impression Gus might give, with his smile that doesn’t show his teeth and his air of a tortured poet, he has a special charm.
When the sun is shining inside him, when he has a moment where everything clicks, he’s charming.
And that’s what he’s being right now: a charmer.
And that helps ease the tension in the air: my rubbing with Marín, his irreversible breakup with Aroa, Gus’s mistress-less poems, whatever’s making Blanca seem so down, the information piling up inside Loren that, I’d bet my whole hand, he can’t take anymore.
After lunch, Gus struck up a conversation with the middle-aged English couple in the next site over.
They don’t know much Spanish and Gus doesn’t know much English, but they understand each other perfectly.
They joke and tease each other about how there’s a time difference even though Spain and England are so close together, and they chat about customs: paella, siesta, coffee…
After a while, Gus shows up on the edge of their plot with two of the Styrofoam cups Loren and Aroa just bought so that the plastic ones wouldn’t melt from the heat of the coffee (Aroa heard that’s really toxic) and offers them to our English neighbors while we make the most of ours.
They ask us when we’re leaving. “Tomorrow,” we answer with sad faces.
Our next destination depends a little on what we see when we get to where we’re supposed to eat lunch.
They’re enthusiastic about our adventure, how we’re all celebrating our friend’s wedding and that we’re not noisy at all…
They love that too. Apparently, we’re not brawling as loudly as we thought.
“Wow, look at this amazing hammock. This…is cool.” Gus points at a rope hammock hanging between two trees on the other part of the neighboring site.
“We bought it in Mexico,” they say excitedly.
“Maybe if I convince these losers…our next trip, nuestro viaje…más lejos, far away. To Mexico, tal vez, maybe.”
“Have you…tried?” They nod at the hammock.
“No.” He shakes his head. “But I’ll have to bring one back when I go to put in my living room.”
I don’t think they understood that last part, but fifteen minutes later, the hammock is set up next to our motor home, next to the table where we’re making lunch.
“Tomorrow you go…bye-bye. Enjoy it today.”
We take turns trying it, but, of course, the one who ends up falling asleep in it is Gus, who suddenly looks like a communion boy. Blanca, Marín, and I, sitting on the steps to the camper and some chairs, watch him with a smile, while Loren and Aroa take a siesta in their bunks.
Blanca is puffing slowly on a cigarette, and the smoke is making pretty white swirls, which disappear almost instantly.
“Look at him,” Marín murmurs. “Seeing him all peaceful like this, anyone would think he was a good little boy and all that.”
“He is a good boy,” Blanca pipes up. “But…”
“But he doesn’t know how to shut up,” I add.
“I don’t think that’s the problem,” she replies. “I think the problem is that he shuts up when he shouldn’t and he talks when it’s not his turn. And that gets him in a lot of trouble.”
“That’s a good description,” Marín says. “The guy in the motel is his spitting image in forty years.”
“Seriously?” We both smile at him.
“Yeah. But in a bad way. It’s like the ghost of summers yet to come: If you keep going with a life of excess, you’re going to turn out like me.”
“This guy?” Blanca side-eyes him, raising her eyebrows. “He’ll turn out better than anyone. He’s very savvy. A survivor. When we least expect it, he’ll announce his engagement to a duchess; he was born to be a kept man. To pamper himself, read, and drink good wine.”
I glance over at him. Maybe. He lives hard, loves life, hates the world and sometimes himself, but Gus is at one of those points in his cycle when his poetry is speaking someone’s name for him.
I don’t know if he’s having trouble accepting it or if he doesn’t want anyone to know, but there’s something more than flirtation stuck in his head.
“He’s into someone,” I say softly.
“You think so?” Marín asks. “I asked him this morning, and he said—”
“That poetry is in the air and doesn’t belong to anyone and blah, blah, blah…right? I was with him for almost a year. I know exactly when Gus is smitten because…he actually never has been. Does that make sense?”
“Not really,” Blanca teases.
“Neither Gus nor I was in love. I’ve never really seen him that excited about any of his dalliances.
It’s the first time he’s been like this, and…
he’s really feeling some type of way because he’s seeing life from the other side: melancholy, nostalgia, hostility…
This Gus isn’t the regular bon vivant Gus. This is him in love. Look…”
I creep into the camper slowly so I don’t wake any of the others and rummage in one of the cupboards until I find the crumpled napkins. I creep out again and sit on the steps of the motor home after I hand them over.
“Aroa said some of his recent poems were for me, and I almost believed it. It’s an ego thing, I guess.
The thing is… I found these crumpled up in my sleeping bag.
I’ve been thinking about it, and he probably meant to toss them in the trash, but with the wine and the dark, he missed and they fell into the bunk.
This poetry… It’s not for me. And we all know it. ”
Marín and Blanca huddle over the pieces of paper as they read. Blanca has to wait for Marín to finish before she can turn each piece over and keep reading. When they’re done, they glance at each other and then at me.
“Um…wow,” Marín whispers, “I’d say Gus is in love.”
“He’s in deep,” I declare.
Deep. Like me with Marín. That’s why I recognize it—we’re both lovesick.
* * *
As with any nocturnal animal, you normally have to wait for night to fall before Gus perks up.
When we were together, he didn’t usually stir from his lethargy until seven in the evening.
But not today, of course. Today, after a catnap, he wakes up raring to go.
And now he wants to go to the beach. And Blanca, Aroa, and I agree because we want to see the ocean, but Loren doesn’t feel like it.
Marín walks next to me with one of those half smiles that make a beautiful dimple in his cheeks, and I can’t stop looking at it. I contemplate whether I should talk to him about this morning, but his expression puts me off. I don’t want to face the moment of tension, especially not right now.
Aroa is trying to mask everything, but we’re watching her.
Well, in this case I think it’s more like “we’re watching it.
” My heart is split for Aroa. On one side, I understand that it can be horrible to see all your hopes of getting back together with the person you love crumble.
And I feel bad because I’m barging into the rubble of what they had, trying to find out if the land is habitable, if I can scavenge something from here for myself.
She’s my friend, but he could be the love of my life.
What am I doing? I was always one of those girls, teenagers, young women who looked down on anyone who would put bros before sisters. So what am I doing?
Well, it’s not any man—it’s Marín.
And, on the other hand, I have to admit that he’s been pretty firm, especially for the past few months. The reason they broke up is still there, and for him it’s important. What could it be? Gema… Maybe it’s her.
“Have you talked to Gema?” I ask him, seizing her name popping into my head to break the silence.
“Yeah.” He nods and smiles. “Although, apparently you have too.”
“That was days ago. What did she tell you?”
“Not much. As soon as I get back to Madrid, I’m going to go pick her up. We’re going on a sibling trip.”
“Sounds like an awesome plan.” I nod, looking forward again and meeting eyes with Aroa, who looks away instantly. “My brothers never took me on a trip.”
“Never?”
“Does locking me in a closet with all the skis on a family trip count?”
“It’s a point for them going to hell, that’s for sure. Wanna come?”
“To hell? No, but there’ll be an all-inclusive wristband waiting for me at the gate. Satan is filing his nails while he waits for me.”
“Hell is reserved for people like Gus.” He laughs, jerking his head toward him. “Writers, painters, models, DJs…”
“Sounds like a party, dude. I think I wanna go to hell now.”
“I meant the trip, Sardine.” He elbows me. “If you wanna come on our little escapade, I’m sure Gema would love having you with us.”
An explosion in my stomach feels like a firework, and I could swear a spark escapes from my nose when I try to take a deep breath.
Soooooooo we’re not going to talk about how I touched his penis and he fondled my nipple, but from the looks of it, we can still be Sardine and Anchovy.
And make plans. Intimate. Like…a couple?
“No,” I answer more goofily than I’d like. “It’s a sibling trip. I don’t want to impose.”
“Well…since yours are assholes, Gema and I can be your stand-in siblings. Anyway, we’re practically like siblings already.”